Last To Learn About The Last Of The Mohicans

Because, like most people, I don't live in LA or NYC, movies, TV shows and books are never set in places where I've lived. I've never been able to watch a movie and think "Yeah, I know that place." Of course I never knew that was something I was missing, either. But, I just discovered that this guy, James Fenimore Cooper, wrote this book, "The Last Of The Mohicans", in 1825 and it's set in the area north of Albany NY, specifically at Fort William Henry on the south end of Lake George. I grew up in that area, and worked every summer either in Lake George village, or for the ice company that delivered all up and down the lake. Fort William Henry is still there, looking out over the lake, mildly entertaining tourists from NYC and Montreal.

I haven't read the book, but we did watch the 1992 movie adaptation of it last weekend. And I was able to sit there, thinking "Hey, half the streets in the area are named after the six people sitting at that table!" and "I used to ride my bike from Fort Edward to Fort William Henry - takes about an hour!" "That's my place!" Imagine my surprise!

Looking at the scenery in the movie, I also thought "Hey... those mountains, those shrubs, they all look familiar, but something about them is not quite right..." And that's because it was filmed, not in the Adirondacks where the story is set, but in my current home state of NC. So, I'm watching NC scenery ("Hey, they're at Table Rock! We sat right on that boulder!") standing in for upstate NY locations. Two for one!

Yeah yeah, so I'm 21 years late.

Now that I know the story, I'm baffled as to why:

  1. Kids in that area aren't taught anything about the French and Indian war
  2. Kids in that area aren't required to read that book

We had to read a lot of Dickens, Joyce and Shakespeare, innumerable British poets, Johnny Tremain, The Scarlet Letter, The Good Earth but nothing set in the area. We studied the US revolution, US in the 1800s, the Chinese revolution, US civics, etc., but I don't remember ever hearing about the French and Indian wars. Or maybe I was asleep that month. I did a lot of sleeping in high school.

8 thoughts on “Last To Learn About The Last Of The Mohicans”

  1. Mark Low

    Oh. Man. Yeah. Totally. It’s unlikely that students in the Adirondacks learn much about the pivotal battles for either the French & Indian War or the American Revolution fought in the region. I think one of the main reasons the French & Indian War is poorly taught is because:

    1. It’s incredibly confusing
    2. We weren’t America yet

    The war didn’t foster a sense of nationalism among those fighting – and I could type for a while about that but the basic gist/sweeping generalization is that:

    1. our military didn’t fight in the war
    2. aside from Major Washington, no heroes of the war fit into our “patriot” mythology. They were Brits.

    The only things that are taught about the war:

    1. France didn’t build cities, it built trading outposts
    2. The war cost Britain a lot of money

    So the Stamp Act, and various other acts, were passed by Parliament to pay for the war. And colonists, ambivalent about the war in Europe that spread to the colonies, did nothing particularly heroic until the British said, “Pay up.”

    The French & Indian War shows our total reliance on Britain during the 1750s, as British subjects, with no particular identity of our own. That should be enough to keep its actual events relatively obscure.

    1. cleek Post author

      or the American Revolution fought in the region

      i’ve always thought that was really strange, too. there’s that giant undeveloped chunk land out near Saratoga… i don’t remember any teacher ever telling us why it was important enough to deserve its own sign on Rt 87 – something about a “battlefield” ?

  2. platosearwax

    Huh. I have a good (online) friend who lives in Glens Falls. Pretty sure he has always lived there.

    I lived in Los Angeles for a while so I have seen tons of stuff I drove by every day. The best was seeing an episode of COPS where they ran down some dude at the Ralphs Grocery I used to shop at.

    1. cleek Post author

      since it’s a town of about 15000, that’s pretty unusual.

      Pretty sure he has always lived there.
      even stranger ! :)

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